Community Outreach and Engagement Team

Kazeem is originally from Ago Iwoye, Nigeria where he studied Liberal Arts and trained at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism as a Public Relations Expert. Since 2002, he has worked diligently with many Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) medical doctors on health research to enlighten New Yorkers across the 5 boroughs about cancer prevention and general health care support. Through his work as a Public Health Research Worker at Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Community Outreach and Engagement Office (COE), he has been co-authored in three publications published by the Journal of Community Health, Cancer Prevention Research, and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention. Currently, Kazeem’s aim is to make health care knowledge, specifically cancer and cancer prevention, more accessible to New Yorkers via faith leaders to their congregants by making videos about various health topics in English and his native language, Yoruba, through COE. 

Mary Beth, Professor of Epidemiology, has over 20 years of experience conducting studies examining environmental and lifestyle exposures and how they affect cancer risk.  She is committed to training and is very involved in high school and undergraduate training programs for youth in the local communities.

Karen Schmitt, MA, RN, Director of the Manhattan Cancer Services Program, is a clinician and health educator whose career of more than 30 years has focused on understanding the health seeking behaviors and beliefs, communication preferences, and educational and cancer needs of the diverse populations within our community to mitigate cancer disparities. Both her community work and research build on a framework to address and overcome the social and cultural barriers to preventive cancer care and has improved the access to cancer screening, diagnostics, and treatment for thousands over the years.

Parisa Tehranifar, DrPH has training and expertise in sociomedical sciences, cancer epidemiology and implementation science. Dr. Tehranifar's research program broadly addresses cancer health disparities and breast cancer screening and prevention.

Belkis Poche as a project coordinator with COE and also works closely with the Clinical Protocol and Data Management Office. She is also a member of the DEI Advisory Council at Columbia University. She worked for Aspira of New York (a non-profit organization that achieved bilingual education in the US) as Assistant Director in PS 325. Belkis studied psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University, studied medicine at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo in D.R, and worked in the medical National Police Department in Santo Domingo, D.R. In NYC, she has represented the associations of parents and teachers as President of the Council of Presidents in school district #6, was appointed member of the County President Scott Stringer’s Community Education Council, and was part of the Creation of the Chalk Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Belkis Poche is also a parent Advocate in NY School Community.

Chrystelle L. Vilfranc received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, with a minor in Mathematics, from a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Oakwood University. She completed her PhD in Cancer and Cell Biology, where her dissertation work involved using basic science, molecular and cell biology approaches to determine the role of a key protein in protecting the liver against injury. She then completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Cancer Related Population Science in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Her work focused on environmental exposure studies as well as breast cancer disparities research with a focus on postpartum breast cancer. In her current role as Science Director, she leads liver health community initiatives and focuses on science communication efforts to engage scientists at the Cancer Center to communicate their science to the public. She believes that including and involving communities that are underrepresented in health research is key to impactful research and better overall health among these communities and is therefore committed to increasing representation in the cancer space, from the patient level to the researcher and provider levels.